


Better than wit

by drcalvin



Category: Rómeó és Júlia (Színház)
Genre: Blasphemy, Bruises, Complicated Relationships, Denial, Emotional Constipation, Frenemies, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Light Masochism, M/M, Outdoor Sex, Self-Destructive Behavior, Swearing, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-28 16:48:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5097998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drcalvin/pseuds/drcalvin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mercutio is battered, but his pride remains intact. Even if his circumstances have been temporarily reduced to a torn shirt, thin breeches and the most hopeless boots in his wardrobe, nothing to moan about. Once he has walked back to Verona - in these truly hopeless boots - taken a bath, burnt his clothes and drunk himself insensible, all shall be well. </p><p>Except today Tybalt has decided to take some air, and when did a Capulet know to leave well enough alone?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better than wit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SosearchingRomeo (Breakingthestandards)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Breakingthestandards/gifts).



> Dear SosearchingRomeo, I have tried to write you a Tybalt and Mercutio fic that you'll enjoy. I hope I managed - at least it was great fun to write.
> 
> Thanks to MissM for help polishing the grammar; remaining errors are all my fault.

Mercutio never minded sheathing another man's dagger. A harsh grip around his hip, to be weighted down by straining flesh and muscles, the unmistakeable fullness inside, having sensations pulled out of him until he took himself in hand – oh, he far from minded.

In fact, all forms of bedsport delighted him, with hands and tongues and cocks and cunts. There was nothing and nowhere, he'd bragged, that Mercutio would not try at least once. 

Then his wine-soaked friends had spun the thought further and jeered about his alleged lust for the beasts of the fields. 

Foolish boys. He'd deflected their attack ( _Beasts, you say? I suppose a Capulet might do in a pinch. They slobber as dogs do, but once they've learned to heel, their enthusiasm is gratifying_ ) and when they tried to bring it up again, he'd composed a nasty tune in revenge, to remind them of their place.

Besides, Mercutio stood by his word. Excluding actual beasts, he'd give anyone a try. Let his uncle accuse him of bedding half of Verona – what else were most people good for, anyway? 

Seen in that light, his recent experiences should merely count as new discoveries. Two for the price of one: How it felt to be fucked by a bishop, and how it was to be utterly fucked over by one – and he had the marks to remember things by, whether he wanted to or not.

Novelty aside, he'd take the gentle, if goat-smelling, hands of a gray-robed friar over the prickly pride of the miter any day. 

Mercutio's train of thought was interrupted when he stumbled and almost twisted his ankle. Again. 

When they had ridden out from Verona, the bishop had offered him the use of a very fine horse. Mercutio, preening beneath the lingering looks, had put on his thinnest leather breeches and the gilded riding boots as a sign of his gratitude. Beautiful, fancy frippery, and entirely useless to walk in.

Gilded and useless. Much like bishops. 

He’d fucked a washer-woman once, had Mercutio. Her hands had been disgusting, raw and red, but her tits were still plump and her ass tighter than a whore's. And _she_ hadn't thrown him out from her bed – her pallet – with come still slicking up his ass, merely because he wouldn't play catamite to the entire household. Not that her household involved anybody except lice, but the principle held. 

"Oh, for fuck's sake. You?" 

The shadows were too thick beneath the bay tree in the roadside for Mercutio to make out the speaker, but he knew those grumbling tones.

Splendid. If he was to consider who he'd least like to meet in this state, duty forced him to begin with the shade of his long-suffering mother. Then followed Romeo with his too innocent eyes and too tempting smile, then his uncle. After that? Tybalt of the Capulets numbered the fourth. No, third – his uncle would rather close eyes and nose and ignore everything. Especially for a bishop whose connections to Rome would blind him even better than the wealth of Capulet and Montague combined. 

Tybalt stepped closer to the road, sour-faced as usual. He had a pair of rabbits dangling from a snare, but no knapsack or hunting gear. "Why are you out here, instead of halfway down a wine barrel?" 

Mercutio felt himself relax a smidge. Tybalt so free with his language meant no impressionable Capulet retainers around, eager to prove themselves. Say, by stringing a Montague ally up by his garish boots. 

"A rarity, that your words reflect my thoughts," Mercutio replied, the exchange of insults familiar. Comfortable. "But I must return your own questions today. Where hides the wine and celebration? Fairground eve, and the Prince of Cats wanders the desolate hills? I can't recall ever meeting you outside tavern or whorehouse on such a night before. Or – no, say it is not so! Tybalt the meek, the mild and well-mannered, he could surely not have lost his temper… again?" 

"What are you implying!" Tybalt took a threatening step forward, the effect slightly ruined by the snared rabbits he still held. 

Mercutio covered his mouth and affected a titter. "Merely that the ladies of Verona who ply the ancient trade have spoken of mutiny as regards my prince's orders. An ill fate that drives a man to vent his anger on these ferocious forest beasts."

Everybody who knew anything knew of the disagreement between Tybalt and the brothel-keepers of Verona. He was too rough with the merchandise, some whispered, though others believed he was merely too skint to tip enough for the bruises.

"Fuck you," Tybalt spat back, throwing the rabbits over his shoulder and coming down onto the road. "I don't need to pay coin for women."

"Indeed, flocks of maidens gather where you go! Drawn, no doubt, by your fine prospects, excellent manners and those delightful smiles, so freely offered."

"Oh, shut it. Unless you want to walk all the way back to Verona in those…" Tybalt wrinkled his nose. "Boots." 

He must be more addled than he thought, because Tybalt's words rang nonsensical to him. Once Mercutio parsed their meaning, he near made the mistake to voice his gratitude. By the steepening angle of Tybalt's brows, thanks would be most unwelcome, and so he responded only with a shrug and kept walking. Tybalt fell into step next to him, shortening his stride without any further comments regarding Mercutio's (lack of) outfit. 

In return, Mercutio refrained from asking why Tybalt was here by his lonesome. His own patience was short, but Tybalt's was easily as bad and he was curiouser even than his namesake. Taciturn or not, he'd spill in time. 

When they reached the crest of the next hill, Mercutio saw a mule-cart parked ahead, surrounded by a conspicuous lack of further Capulets. Tybalt's? How… rustic; not how Tybalt usually traveled. 

"So, what the hell happened to you? You look like someone rode you like a horse and then whipped you like a dog." Tybalt asked, with his usual sense of tact. 

The road turned downhill, and Mercutio feared he wasn't quite managing to hide his discomfort; the steep incline strained certain muscles in most unpleasant ways. 

"A question for a question, my sweet," he deflected.

"Ass." But despite his grumbling, Tybalt answered. "A doctor, a new one. He didn't say he could cure anything… But he wants me to drink less. A lot less." He grimaced.

Mercutio sympathized, and showed as much in an exaggerated shudder. Doctors always wanted their patients to drink less, which proved that they understood nothing about what truly ailed a man. Long ago, Mercutio had decided to instead drink more and spend less time with doctors. It had worked _outstandingly_ , and he looked forward to imbibing as much of his uncle's wine cellar as he could stomach tonight. 

"It's all a crock, but my aunt wants me to try. So."

"So here we have you, wholesomely hunting rabbits. But the cart?" 

"There's this weed, grows up here. Whole cart full of it. My cousin likes the smell and I could hardly spend the day on small game. Anyway…" 

Tybalt, with a delicacy far beyond their public interactions, laid his hand against Mercutio's shirt, stopping them both.

The laces he hadn't bothered to properly tie again were brushed aside. He felt Tybalt's callouses against his skin, sword-roughed fingers following a set of three scratches, making the red lines sting. With intriguing gentleness, his hand opened wider, sliding up Mercutio's chest until he felt thumb and index finger touch upon another set of bruises, felt mild pressure against his Adam's apple. A prickle of unease creeped along his spine, but Tybalt's voice contained only familiar disdain.

"You obviously didn't come to improve your health. Or did you take a wrong turn, had a regiment mistake you for one of the maidens you babble about?"

"My sweet Tybalt… I am grieved to share this news with you." He swallowed, enjoying the flex of fingers and the increased pressure on his throat. "But never did I know you'd saved your virginity for my sake, and I've frippered my own away! My sincere apologies."

Tybalt, he was certain, quenched a laugh at that, before stepping closer. "As if there was ever any doubt about what part you play in deflowering virgins, be they maidens or lads… or hounds." 

So the Capulets had heard his song too. That explained last week's scuffle, and poor Giovanni's leg. 

"Of course, if one is used to Montagues, the differences ought to be invisible."

"Pfeh. I'd be more impressed by your wit, if I hadn't penned that very jest myself. And you misquote me! I clearly refer to your own dogged kin!" Pulling free, Mercutio twirled away, blowing a kiss Tybalt's way.

"I thought you'd cast me the prince of cats."

"That, sweet Tybalt, is because you are the solitary spark in a house full of unsightly, inbred ingrates."

Tybalt grabbed him by the shirtfront before Mercutio had finished the last words, his fist already drawn back. It stung, that he'd allow the events to rattle him enough that he forgot where the mires lay hidden when sparring on such familiar ground. A couple bruises, a little insults; not reason enough to become distracted.

"I am referring, of course, to your charming father and your generous uncle," he continued breathlessly, grinning blandly as had he not noticed Tybalt's anger. "Tell me, have you caught them buggering in the bushes yet or are they still merely throwing each other lustful looks at the dinner table?"

"You wretch!" Tybalt yanked Mercutio nearer, until he could feel his breath on his face. Wine-free and fresh, for once. "That your uncle hasn't had your tongue pulled out by now…"

"I believe he lives in awe of its many talents!"

Still sneering, Tybalt shook him. "Those being the ones you charge for by the hour?"

Tybalt had called him many names; only last week, he'd been Montague's kept bitch. Usually, Mercutio returned any insult with the diligence of angels, paying any heckler back sevenfold or worse. And he knew the words he ought to wield now: A quip about Tybalt earning his coin in the alleys, with an extra sting regarding his outstanding debts and what they implied of his skills. But for once, his silver tongue lay leaden and dead, while Mercutio floundered in sudden rage. 

With his knife, he was swift, with words even swifter. But today, while Tybalt had chased bunnies, Mercutio had learned the limits of both his favoured arms. He had learned, in a rented villa with crumbling frescoes, that neither was enough to shield him against a crumbling wreck of a man who was too old and wily to play by the rules they followed, despite everything, in Verona. He'd learned of men too keen on wielding the scourge, whose hunger could not be deflected with a joke, who had tried to pay him – in trinkets, first. Then slaps and worse, when he spat at their trash and in their filthy faces, screaming insults until they choked his words away from him, left him weaponless and bursting with hatred. 

"I'd pay in gold," he heard Tybalt say from beyond the rage. Shouting it, in fact, his hands firm around Mercutio's shoulders.

"Hah! You never have any any gold," Mercutio replied reflexively. He was coming to realize that he too must have been shouting. There was a bitter taste in his mouth and his skin felt four sizes too small, the scratches and bruises prickling all over. Clawing at his attention, as if he was too weak to ignore those utterly inconsequential gnat bites! 

"I'd find gold," Tybalt said, absurdly assured about this nonsense.

"Hah!" As if it mattered what he'd pay with. As if he wasn't calling Mercutio a whore, even as he tried to offer comfort. What an idiot, to believe that Mercutio needed such clumsy words. But what else to expect from wrong-headed Capulets with less sense than… "Idiot."

"Maybe. Especially since I haven't even seen proof that you possess any talents beyond babbling."

"Talents for talers, isn't that the whore's ethos?" Mercutio said, venom dripping from his tone. "This isn't a game I have the taste for tonight, kitten. So, either unhand me, or prepare to have your tail sheared."

"You are the most annoying –" 

The rest of Tybalt's words were lost when Mercutio's teeth knocked against his lips. 

They pushed up against each other, chest to chest, hands scrabbling and mouths less kissing than sliding over each other. Mercutio's nose pressed uncomfortably against bone, until at last, Tybalt let go of his stiff-spined tension; he tilted his head, softened his mouth and with that, they were no longer locked in struggle.

Tybalt's hand squeezed his thigh, drawing up and around him before halting at the swell of his buttocks. Mercutio kissed him in agreement, spread his legs wider, and felt Tybalt cup his behind, unable to keep silent at what he found. That was sweeter balm than any words! He'd heard, seen, smelled Tybalt bed harlots more often than he wished to recall – Verona only had so many places that catered to their tastes. But never had he heard him groan so sweetly, with such want.

While his mind had become distracted, his body remained fixed on the goal. Mercutio came to himself realizing that his hands had snaked themselves up Tybalt's back without permission, hunting around the edges of the leather vest for an opening. He felt the corded muscles beneath, trembling tension in his neck and then – the rabbits dropping to the ground, forgotten and ignored – Tybalt half clutched, half lifted Mercutio. An invitation he gladly accepted, wrapping his leg around the strong form, grinding their crotches together until Tybalt staggered. And perhaps he threw himself headfirst into the pleasures of the body to choke silent the echoes in his mind, but who needed to know that?

Yet, his mind would not be struck dumb by pleasure, as stubbornly babbling as Mercutio himself when ordered to silence. He was still wet, sticky, from before. Without doubt, the marks on his back and his ass looked even worse than on his front. Tybalt knew, was not quite blockheaded enough to ignore the proof before him. He knew, might already have heard of the bishop in his rented villa, had found Mercutio thrown out, limping half-dressed and filthy on the least traveled road… but Tybalt was still groaning against him, hungry sounds of want and simple lust. Pressing his tongue inside Mercutio's mouth with clumsy eagerness that revealed more than his insults ever did. 

Still, he needed… Just one moment, a little push to bring things to order. He slid the kiss aside, Tybalt's hair falling long against his face. It smelled herbal, clean; the little cousin had good taste in plants. Mercutio spoke: "While I'm not categorically denying the appeal –" 

The last time Tybalt had growled at anyone like this, he'd ended up throwing the unfortunate through a window. Given the hardness in his breeches and the way he was trying to make Mercutio climb him right there on the road, that outcome seemed blessedly unlikely. 

"Look, I've gotten this far without falling on my ass. If you drop me – blood, Tybalt, I swear there will be rivers of blood."

"Mine, yours, or Montague's?"

Mercutio smacked him for his cheek. Then, before Tybalt managed to distract himself to anger, groped him through his breeches. 

"Anywhere but the road. Or a ditch," Mercutio promised, measuring the outline of Tybalt's cock, his fingers twitching in anticipation. They stumbled off the road, through a shallow drainage ditch – full of spiny weeds, was he not clever to beware of them? Elated, Mercutio jumped ahead, crowing as he raced up the crumbling sandstone hill. His boots were scuffing badly, his legs burned and still, he led towards victory!

"Too slow, my prince!" he called back. "You'll need to spend little less time tomcatting to keep up with me."

Tybalt tackled him into the heathers. Mercutio laughed defiantly at him until he lost his breath and lay gasping on the scratchy underbrush. He felt Tybalt's hands on his back, sliding up beneath his shirt, bringing him back inside his skin again. Long fingers stroked and squeezed, their touch stinging where they crossed his lash-marks, but Mercutio lifted himself onto his elbows and pushed back against Tybalt. More, he demanded, more sweetly stinging sensation, more touch and admiration. 

The shirt had bunched up around his neck and Tybalt was tugging at it. Very well, he'd take it off. Mercutio rose to his knees, pulled the ragged thing free and dropped it in front of himself. Not a blanket, but it would do. Then Tybalt's arms were around him again, pulling him backwards. Mercutio felt the muscled arms embrace him, capture him. Forced himself to relax; it was only Tybalt. Who fondled him, stomach, chest, his hair falling soft around Mercutio's shoulder, his voice a half-heard comfort, its softness at odds with the demands of his body. He was thrusting against Mercutio, his hands and his cock speaking desire, echoed by the ragged breaths he felt, warm and moist, against his neck. Only Tybalt, who wanted him even more than he wanted Montague's household in ruins, and who never managed to stay away. Mercutio finally sank backwards, allowed himself to be fondled as freely as Tybalt wished. 

"Will you duel me? Pin me down, bleed me out, give me death after death after death…" His mouth was running away with him again, waking echoes in his mind. Mercutio found Tybalt's hand, bit along the joints, licking and tempting. His breeches felt too restrictive and Tybalt, mercy be, saw his plight; these weren't at all made to open one-handed. When their hands met around Mercutio's cock, he shuddered, banked fire reawakening in his core.

"Not tired, then?" Tybalt mumbled against his shoulder, spreading soft bites along the cord of muscle there.

"I can duel you any day, my boy, and every night to that. Besides." He laughed, a shrill giggle that pinched deep in his chest. "They weren't much interested in playing with my sword." 

Tybalt jerked suddenly against him, bit down too hard. Fresh pain bloomed in his flesh, a muted note in his chorus of bruises, and Mercutio hissed in displeasure. Never one for apologies, Tybalt threw himself on the sandy ground and pulled Mercutio on top. 

He twisted around, wriggled until they saw each other face to face and Tybalt – his fine strength and those impossible legs – was his willing mattress. Fuck, but Tybalt's eyes were fascinating in anger, and it was so rare that Mercutio had peace to study them. They sat wide and deep beneath his dark brows, gleamed wet like the sea under a breaking storm, just before Neptune's fury tore everything apart. 

Facing those depths, even Mercutio struggled for words. So few they were, the gazes that could silence him: one filled with the kindness of the blue sky, and then, this ocean of anger. 

He shared that fury now, it quaked and trembled beneath his bruised skin. Rage and regret, and yet more rage for the shame of regret. 

But at least today, their rage was not aimed at each other. And lacking both anger and words, Mercutio resorted to the language of his body. He fitted himself between Tybalt's thighs, enjoying the way his breeches tented even more, undulating against him to encourage that sweet torment. Tybalt's touch against his abused back was a cleansing gale that scattered memories. In return, Mercutio bent to kiss away the scowl on the thin lips, used all his skills until he heard a broken groan. Then Tybalt pushed him back to struggle out of his clothes. Mercutio flung his vest away and only refrained from doing the same to the shirt because Tybalt threw it down on as a blanket. Their hands met and tangled over his belt, before they got the buckle open.

"How do you want…" Tybalt tugged at Mercutio's abused breeches. 

He'd not had time to find his belt, had only put sailors knots on the laces and then drawn them as tight as possible. "Doesn't matter, but do it swiftly. Hah. Imagine my uncle's face, were I to proceed stark naked through the western gate. Could he ignore that sight, you think?"

"Don't –" But Tybalt's eyes were wild and he fumbled for his knife. "You're shameless!"

" _Always_ , my prince, always! I'll live shameless, die shameless, and I'll throw myself on your blade rather than cower before anyone!"

Mercutio shivered with delight as the steel lay cool against his thigh, and then Tybalt cut his breeches off; swift with the blade, was his Capulet. He felt rather than heard the dull thud as Tybalt stuck the blade into the sandy earth, freeing his hands to return, demanding and eager. They rubbed against each other, rutting on the ground like beasts, and Mercutio felt his entire body come alive. 

His knees were scraping raw against the sand, Tybalt marking him by tooth and claw, with a collar of bruises on neck and throat, a perfect, shameless brand on the side of his chin. Where he drew nails down Mercutio's back, grasped hungrily at his backside, his greedy Capulet hands scoured everything but their own marks away. Where their skin grew red and tender, wrestling among the heaters as they were, he'd feel only the sting of earth and weed and Tybalt, when tomorrow he'd look upon another lonely morning. 

Everywhere, he touched, everything, he branded. But as their movements grew more desperate, his hands lingered around Mercutio's ass. Well, Tybalt always did prefer to let his actions speak for him. Now he cupped his hands around Mercutio, forcing him down until they bucked against each other while the fabric of his breeches, bunched around his ankles, loudly strained. Perhaps they should walk hand in hand and bare-assed into Verona; it ought at least amuse Romeo. 

Mercutio inserted a hand between them, got an awkward grip around their cocks. Tybalt's breath stuttered, and then his fingers dipped too carefully inside Mercutio's cleft, a whisper-soft touch against his opening. A caress he'd never known from Tybalt and never asked for either.

"Fuck me," Mercutio said, spreading his knees on sand and heather, arching his back as were he the cat in heat. "Fucking fuck me, Capulet, or –"

Tybalt breached him open with a finger, or fingers, entering too slickly and suddenly. He should know how many, but his facilities of reason had left him; beneath him Tybalt was as stone, every muscle tensed while a grinding sound escaping his jaws. His lips were pressed together, turned white and bloodless, and Mercutio could not brave his gaze. Instead, he dropped his head, felt Tybalt's face, his nose, turning just a little until it rested against his temple. While his own pulse drummed like thunder, he felt not a breath stir his hair. Time was lost, when his heart marched to such a mad beat, but had it not been too long, was Tybalt truly frozen stiff, when his fingers were buried in Mercutio, when his living flesh was still caught in Mercutio's grip? 

Puzzling out Capulet oddities was familiar, as bizarre as the situation had become. He'd longed for that great anger only moments ago, had he not? He clenched his muscles, made to speak through his locked jaw. He needed no shame, need only to indulge, again, in Tybalt's rage. It would often ease his own anger; when there was no amusement left in seduction, when ordinary friendships and enmities felt equally dull, who else was too full of spite and vinegar to leave Mercutio alone with his moods? 

"Didn't you hear? Has the cat lost his ears?" he spoke against Tybalt's cheek, the words coming easy once released. "Fuck me. Or fuck off."

That long-held breath broke out of Tybalt and his hand trembled inside Mercutio. Unacceptable. He balled his fist, gave Tybalt a demanding punch in the ribs and finally, the bastard moved. Moved his hand, took advantage of the slick, stroked and tested, slowly opening Mercutio. If it stung – a Capulet was born an insensitive brute, what else to expect? And if Tybalt muttered some of the vilest oaths Mercutio had ever heard spoken, then let him! He was always upset at something or other.

But he had skilled fingers and his cock grew ever harder, was soon leaking under Mercutio's ministration. When Tybalt urged him into position, at last spreading Mercutio open, his hips twitched upwards. Mercutio spat on his palm, spread it on Tybalt with easy moves, not taking his eyes off the pleasure-twisted face. 

For when he lay so needful beneath Mercutio, sweat beaded at every awkward angle of him, with his mouth open around panted breaths, there was a blush of grace on Tybalt's sallow cheeks. 

Mercutio sank down onto him with a shout. Tybalt spearing him, Tybalt scrabbling to grip him right, filling him up, drowning them both in sensation.

Every hurt they'd make their own, Mercutio tried to say. But Tybalt's gaze was pulling him in, dark wells empty of anger and a thousand times more dangerous for it. He pulled up, almost slipped free, but Tybalt held him and the muscles on his belly stood out as he raised his hips, filling Mercutio again until it was so good that it hurt. The needs of his body left no place for words or thoughts, only the sensation of a cock filling him and hands steering him, the sound of flesh and breath and desire. Mercutio's control was slipping deliciously away, until he became a slave to his own hand tugging faster and faster at his cock, feeling that sweetest ache take root in his balls and spread down his trembling thighs. He was losing it, and urged Tybalt to hurry on, hurry, hurry!

Not that Tybalt ever took direction well; he was still hard when Mercutio spilled all over him. He hadn't considered how the sight of it would hit him today – a punch to his center, a bolt to his heart. See here, see Tybalt Capulet painted with your own essence. See Tybalt toss his head when Mercutio marked him, feel him swell and thrust deeper. 

It was beginning to burn inside when Tybalt pulled him down, but he could manage. He would see this to the end, because Tybalt lay sobbing dryly beneath him, chasing his own end, his fingers unyielding as the roots of the mountains, desire as relentless as agony carved into his face. 

"Too much, too – !" Mercutio gasped at last, scooting forward, and then he felt Tybalt come against him. A spreading wetness up the cleft of his ass, a last half-missed thrust and then Mercutio half fell down on him, stealing the final groans from Tybalt with a kiss: a little apology, a little courtesy, easy to ignore.

Easy to continue, until Tybalt responded. Easy to shake in Tybalt’s arms with the last swells of pleasure shared between them and bury his face in Tybalt's neck while he, foolish Capulet, held Mercutio much too gently, as if he could ever break on any blade.

**Author's Note:**

> Minor inspiration by The Canterbury Tales, kinda. If you wonder why I picked a bishop, Chaucer is why!


End file.
